My email to the man who worked tirelessly to facilitate Mo’s exit from Lakai, dated 3/28/2011. Still waiting for the response:

Steve-

Doesn’t seem like the phone panned out too well, so I’ll give it a shot here. To preface, I’m not really looking to get into a bunch of heated rhetoric about this, but I do feel like we should have some dialogue about this Mike Mo thing that’s going on right now.

I’m not so naïve as to think that he won’t have his suitors over the course of time, nor am I going to try and deprive the guy of any opportunities he deems suitable for himself if he feels like the ones we provide aren’t enough. However, I am a little taken aback about how aggressive and somewhat negative I understand the approach to have been.

On the one hand, I feel like the basic guideline for what we both do is ‘for the skaters, by the skaters’. On the other, from what I’ve heard, some of what’s being conveyed to Mike Mo is that Lakai will never be a company that can give him what’s on offer outside of here. In essence, a sort of penalization for being run in a manner we both champion. A bit ironic.

I’m not saying Lakai is ever going to be a 500 million dollar company, but we’ve spent the better part of the last year fighting to get it somewhere it can be better than the third option, and we’re finally in the closing stage of making that happen. Whereas in the past there may have been some non-skate element to help justify walking away from Lakai, that won’t be the case going forward.

Even as a third option under pre-existing circumstance, Lakai has finally taken hold in the market and is showing great promise. Going forward, we’re gong to bring in as many skateboarders as possible (employees and riders) to finally help us fulfill the potential we know is there. In doing so, I actually am confident we’ll finally be able to grow to a level where we can give back to skateboarders and skateboarding comparably.

In closing, as I said before, I won’t stand in the way of any decision Mike Mo decides to make when his contract expires at the end of the year. But I am asking that as someone who owns and runs a company under the same premise as us, that you reconsider before offering the idea that a skateboarder can’t get the most out of skateboarding unless it’s through a company that mostly profits outside of skateboarding.

As two people that are interested in keeping whatever commanding heights of the industry are left in the hands of skateboarders, I would like to think this is something we could both agree corresponds with our longer term ideals. If we truly want to get to a level where skate brands can provide the most for skateboarders, it seems like the overall message should be consistent no matter what the context.